http://www.emphaticdigital.com/ED Graphics ConsortiumEmphatic Digital Graphic DesignKahlil Haynes (mailto:webmaster@emphaticdigital.com)Copyright © 2004 Emphatic Digital Graphic Design2008-08-28T23:20:53-04:00http://www.emphaticdigital.com/images/logo.gifhttp://www.emphaticdigital.comhttp://www.emphaticdigital.com/?page_name=index&entry_number=17<p>Formulaic, I know, but the formula works! </p> <h3>The Good </h3> <p>It’s good to see Microsoft has finally started to loosen their policy of having users sit through <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Genuine_Advantage">Microsoft Genuine Advantage Windows Authentication</a> to be able to upgrade to Internet Explorer 7. I'm aware of several computers that had <a href="http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070825-windows-genuine-advantage-suffers-worldwide-outage-problems-galore.html">problems passing WGA</a> previously, (preventing them from upgrading to IE7), that were offered updates to IE6 over the past couple of weeks without requiring WGA. It seems that this is also the case throughout the USA, (at least), as my server logs now show a clear lead for version 7 among all MS versions. (IE is about 80% of my traffic with 40% of that total for version 7 compared to 30% of that total for version 6. It used to be just about even, including last month.) Why is this good? Because killing off heavy use of IE6 would mean designing web pages for that particular browser, with all of its <a href="http://www.communitymx.com/content/article.cfm?cid=67eea">quirks</a>, would be optional, or at least client specific. One less browser to worry about is a good thing.</p> <h3>The Bad</h3> <p>I was really disappointed to see <a href="http://www.gamespot.com/features/6183736/index.html?tag=nl.e579">the gamespot.com benchmarking numbers</a> for AMD's new <a href="http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/ProductInformation/0,,30_118_15331_15332,00.html">Phenom processor</a>. First let me qualify my remarks by saying I am a huge AMD fan. (Not to the point of hating Intel, but if AMD can make their processors so inexpensively then, ... ) And it's not that the Phenom isn't competitive. For the price you could have two of the Phenoms for any one of the comparable Intel Core Duos. And there are other huge advantages for the chip, not the least of which in this global warming aware world is the significantly reduced power consumption and enhanced power management the chip provides as compared to Intel. But in the all important world of market share the name of the game is speed, as in gaming speed, and unfortunately, these test results show some serious concerns in the realm of high end gaming. It also seems as if the testing rig was slanted to the Intel platform. I mean AMD makes a processor especially to take advantage of their ATI acquisition and you test it on an NVIDIA chipset? Not sure that makes sense. I am looking forward <a href="http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/chip-wars/amd-rolls-out-phenom-x2-and-phenom-x4-processors-fasn8-platform-260149.php">to eight cores on a single motherboard</a> sharing 2MB of L3 cache with dedicated L1 and L2 caches for each of the eight cores. With the HyperTransport 3.0 should make for a very fast machine. Especially for designers.</p> <h3>The Ugly</h3> <p>The <a href="http://www.wga.org/">Writer's Guild of America</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Writers_Guild_of_America_strike">strike</a>. Hopefully now, there will be a little more consideration for creative endeavor. I mean, I'm <a href="http://www.eff.org/issues/drm">no fan of DRM (digital rights management)</a> and their invasive big brother practices. And certainly, $17 is much more than the vast majority of modern albums will ever be worth from a creative standpoint. But certainly professional creatives who hone their skills and take their craft seriously are due some rather significant remuneration. I mean TV is all but unwatchable now, ... and it was already unwatchable before! It turns out that creatives were basically keeping the medium afloat. They're bringing back American Idol <em>early</em> for goodness sakes! The next time you are staring at a invoice from a creative, just go ahead and pay it. The world is an ugly place without creativity. </p>2007-12-19T11:45:59-05:00Emphatic Digital Graphic DesignKahlil Haynes (mailto:webmaster@emphaticdigital.com)Copyright © 2004-2008Graphic Designhttp://www.emphaticdigital.com/?page_name=index&entry_number=16<p>As you may know, <a href='http://www.adobe.com/'>Adobe</a> has significantly upgraded its Flash multimedia software. The new product version, (CS3), also comes with a new <a href='http://www.ecma-international.org/publications/standards/Ecma-262.htm'>EMCA Script</a> engine (called the ActionScript Virtual Machine or AVM) for its embedded ActionScript scripting language, while also incrementing the language to version 3. And if you are among the countless leagues of developers who have put in hard time honing your ActionScript skills across the years, you may be asking yourself this question: <em>Is it worth the trouble</em> of, not only adding the new skills and concepts necessary to move into ActionScript 3.0 documents, but just as importantly, of unlearning some old habits, many of which may have become standard to your workflow. (Did I mention that this switchover may also include rewriting either in small or large part much of the code base you've built over the years, including most specifically any large scale frameworks and APIs. i.e., a lot of work ahead of you.)<em> Is it worth it?</em></p> <p>Well for me the short answer is an emphatic yes. First, let's acknowledge that adobe also feels your trepidation and includes the ability to create documents using ActionScript as ancient as version 1.0 inside of Flash CS3 . So if the documents you need to create are simple enough to continue your current coding standards, then maybe you come to a different conclusion since you are not required from a commercial or personal standpoint, to move up to the latest version of the language. But then again maybe not. One of the exciting aspects of a new programming language version is the implicit promise of not just increased security and stability, but of increased capability. Actionscript 3 certainly has <a href="http://livedocs.adobe.com/flash/9.0/ActionScriptLangRefV3/">boo gobs of that</a>. That is one of the main reasons I have chosen to take the plunge and become AS3 compliant, so to speak. The additional functionality is very robust and really the only barrier to application programming with flash is the lack of a 3D renderer and a true 3D API (similar to <a href="http://www.opengl.org/">OpenGL</a> or <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct3D">Direct3D</a>). Although <a href="http://brew.qualcomm.com/brew/en/">there are third party solutions</a> out there. </p> <p>Another reason for my decision to go 3.0 is the fact that the language is mostly fully OOP compliant. For a commercial developer, the greatest benefit of using Object-Oriented Programming principles is that if implemented correctly, robustly and consistently, OOP allow for almost infinite code re-usability. (Basically allowing programmers to make money according to the old record label and book publisher business models). There are other benefits too, like easier debugging of code (from strict data typing), and increased application functionality (from things like command and data serialization interfaces). And it's a great, though incomplete, implementation of OOP. Amazingly, many <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_pattern_(computer_science)">software design patterns</a> are easy to implement in AS3. </p> <p>One of the final determinants for me came from taking a look at the landscape for multimedia document creation, along with the more specific document type known as the RIA or rich internet application. There are several competing technologies out there and many of them come from hobbyist and freelancer dissatisfaction with the cost of acquiring the Flash interface for building documents. While several of them show promise on the surface, none of them can offer the full package of features and functionality that Flash can. Firstly, AS3 documents can be created for free by using the freely available <a href="http://www.eclipse.org/">Eclipse IDE</a> along with the <a href="http://www.adobe.com/products/flex/sdk/">flex sdk</a> (software development kit) also freely available. The learning curve can be much steeper there and you lose some advantages of using the Flash IDE but it's good to know I have the ability to re purpose my learning in AS3 outside of Flash. Furthermore, the roadmap for Flash integration is somewhat more clear as far as embedding your code on multiple platforms and devices. The ubiquity of the Flash Player is so high that even a robust technology like java can't compete on that score. (Although, there may be more opportunities for Java in the mobile market. Flash continues to add to its portfolio of handsets that can run Flash content and Flash wallpapers are especially strong, but it's clear that many handset manufacturers feel Java is the more open platform. Adobe has tried to address this with Adobe AIR.) The addition of the Adobe AIR desktop platform has also increased the viability of writing desktop web-connected applications with AS3. Other 'open' options, such as <a href="http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/AJAX">AJAX</a> and <a href="http://silverlight.net/">Silverlight</a> are hampered various elements. AJAX is great, ... unfortunately, it runs in the browsers javascript compiler. This restricts the frame rate of most applications to a paltry, <a href='http://nontroppo.org/timer/kestrel_tests/'>5-10fps</a>. (and that's with simple graphics). Silverlight, from Microsoft, has some advantages, like using javascript and XML for coding, but, Silverlight, like Flash requires a plug-in to run. Not only is silverlight's install base basically non-existent, Flash has an install rate that hovers around 97% of browsers. Hard for any software to compete with that. (I think it's telling that the MSN video site uses flash to display its videos.) </p>2007-12-11T12:38:12-05:00Emphatic Digital Graphic DesignKahlil Haynes (mailto:webmaster@emphaticdigital.com)Copyright © 2004-2008Graphic Designhttp://www.emphaticdigital.com/?page_name=index&entry_number=15Over the next several weeks, we will be redesigning and rebuilding the site. The site will be a flash/XHTML hybrid with a lot of hopefully subtly active areas for exploration. We will be using our new custom actionscript 3.0 framework that we are building inhouse. (notice that its not built yet!) We are looking to officially launch on Jan 1. Much work has been done, much more remains. So, back to work ...2007-12-06T11:16:26-05:00Emphatic Digital Graphic DesignKahlil Haynes (mailto:webmaster@emphaticdigital.com)Copyright © 2004-2008Graphic Designhttp://www.emphaticdigital.com/?page_name=index&entry_number=14<h3>or ... Changing your Complexion</h3> Recently, my computer graphics/web design students began to feel the frustration that all new web designers, as well as many experienced ones, as they tried to move from the planning stages to the implementation stages. This feeling is more than common it is expected. Surprisingly though, I'd had trouble coming up with a good example of the root cause of most students frustrations with creating their first custom web design, which is the <em><a href="http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/complexity" title="Dictionary.com listing">complexity</a></em> of building multimedia documents. The reason I needed a quality example is because the key to fighting the frustration of building you first web site is in understading the differences between complexity and <em>difficulty</em>. A clear example of the difference is germaine to students feeling confident in their ability to overcome what can be overwhelming complexity. The example I came up with is from mathematics. An example of difficult mathematics is number bases, (e.g., binary, octal, hexadecimal, etc) where conceptually forgetting all of the base 10 mathematics we've learned over the years and switching to a different base number system can be very difficult. No matter the examples, unless you can visualize a completely different numbering system, even a simple process like adding, (or even just counting!) becomes nigh impossible. On the other hand a process like long division is NOT difficult. It only uses simple addition, subtraction, and multiplication to achieve an answer. The reason most grade school kids (and many adults) find it difficult to perform, is because it's a complex procedure. Much like web design, those three simple actions must be performed in an explicit order with no typographical errors allowed. If you perform the actions correctly, you can perform long division on numbers of any size. The frustration comes when you don't perform the actions precisely. You see, both web design and long division are similar in that if you make a mistake in any one of the very simple actions required, not only will the answer be incorrect, but more importantly, you <strong>cannot</strong> tell the answer is incorrect until <em>after you've finished the problem</em> and you test the answer. So that especially in web design, one finds oneself re-doing work that's already been done, just to fix a simple mistake. It can be very frustrating. In my next post, I'll discuss some of the tricks and tools one can use to combat the complexity of web page building. <h3>Industry news</h3> Interesting news from the open source front ... it seems <a href="http://www.adobe.com/">Adobe</a> is contributing source code to the latest updates to ECMA-262. (ECMA-262 is basically the paradigm for programming languages like javascript and Actionscript) Does this mean Actionscript, (currently at version 3), will soon be open source? Let's hope so! That can only mean great things for Actionscript developers.2006-11-07T13:17:21-05:00Emphatic Digital Graphic DesignKahlil Haynes (mailto:webmaster@emphaticdigital.com)Copyright © 2004-2008Graphic Designhttp://www.emphaticdigital.com/?page_name=index&entry_number=13<h3>Adobe</h3> <a href='http://www.adobe.com/'>Adobe</a> is really trying to head off competition from asynchronous scripting, (AJAX), by embracing the technology. They are currently in the middle of a huge blitz pushing the latest release of their Flex web development environment based on their Spry AJAX framework. Their fear of course being that much of that same 'no refresh' responsiveness that Flash is famous for can be mimic'd by asynchronous scripting. The determining factor for whether a developer will prefer one over the other when it comes to creating interaction on web pages is their respective object trees. AJAX relies on the <a href="http://www.w3schools.com/htmldom/default.asp" title="About the DOM">HTML DOM</a> (Document Object Model), while Flash uses a set of core classes that expose all parts of a flash movie as scriptable objects as well. These classes are written in it's own built in language, ActionScript. Actionscript, which, like Javascript, (the language of AJAX), is an <a href="http://www.ecma-international.org/publications/standards/Ecma-262.htm" title="The official specification">ECMA-262</a> scripting language, (giving both essentially the same functionality), is up to version 3.0. I prefer Actionscript myself but I think more importantly both methodologies have core functions that the other doesn't. I imagine that once the <a href="http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp" title="Latest browser stats">browser wars</a> are figured out, both will enjoy amazing popularity for a long time, working side by side. <h3>Quark 7</h3> The silence from the Quark proponents is deafening. I had a discussion with a young woman the other day when she blurted out, apropos of nothing, 'I love <a href="http;//www.quark.com/" title="The Quark web site">Quark</a> 7!'. Well I could tell she was just trying to A) convince herself and B)hope for some confirmation from me that she wouldn't have to come back to school to learn a new software package (Adobe's InDesign layout software). She was half right. I reminded her that she had been waiting for 3 years, (Quark 6.5 doesn't count) for a new version and they gave her at best transparency and drop shadow. Wow. Not to mention the fact that the learning curve for experienced Quark/Photoshop users is not steep at all and of course InDesign has native .pdf creation. Sweet. There really is no contest at this point. Unless you're stuck in an old, (ancient), workflow, you need modern tools to compete. Okay, I'll leave it alone. At least I didn't start in on Macs.2006-07-20T19:28:25-04:00Emphatic Digital Graphic DesignKahlil Haynes (mailto:webmaster@emphaticdigital.com)Copyright © 2004-2008Graphic Designhttp://www.emphaticdigital.com/?page_name=index&entry_number=12After three years of vapid anticipation, <a href="http://www.quark.com" title="The Quark home page">Quark</a> has finally released version 7 of its deeply embedded layout program, XPress. From the early returns I'd say Quark has some major problems ahead.<br />I've mentioned in <a href="http://www.emphaticdigital.com/index.php?entry_number=11&page_name=index" title="Eagerly awaiting Quark">previous posts</a> how this release needed to be a major release for them. Needed to break new ground and extend or recreate the paradigm of "pasting up" documents. I don't feel like they've pulled it off.<br />Before I go into specific features let me first make a note about Quark XPress's new features in general. Despite statements from the company, many of these 'enhancements' simply help the program catch up to the current state graphic design software functionality. They do not give Quark any clear advantage over currently available software, particularly <a href="http://www.adobe.com/" title="The Adobe web site">Adobe</a> Indesign.<br />A quick breakdown of the enhancements, as listed on <a href="http://www.quark.com/products/xpress/newfeatures.cfm" title="">Quark's launch site.</a> Transparency. If transparency is a major upgrade for your software, you're only about 3 years behind the times. Alpha channels. Well, if you are just getting to real alpha channel functionality inside of file formats that have handled alpha channels for years, surely you've added some new functionality to them. Not that I can see. Drop shadows?!? WTF? I would be embarassed to put that as a major feature for my 2006 software release. Layered file import. Really. Get out. Insert Special Character menu. You mean like from MS Word? Identify layer items with layer colors. Oh, snap. Output pdf. Better than Adobe? I'm sorry but <em>this</em> version 7 of XPress should have been released over a year ago and they should be announcing today, version 8. <br /> <strong>In more exciting news</strong><br /> Adobe released details of the next step in their Flash/PDF master plan, <a href="http://www.pdfzone.com/article2/0,1895,1967280,00.asp" title="The PDFzone web site">Project Apollo</a>. The ability to make a web application using simple tools that maintains its state over web sessions is exciting.2006-05-25T11:32:54-04:00Emphatic Digital Graphic DesignKahlil Haynes (mailto:webmaster@emphaticdigital.com)Copyright © 2004-2008Graphic Designhttp://www.emphaticdigital.com/?page_name=index&entry_number=11<h3>Whither Quark</h3> The current main version number of <a href="http://www.quark.com" title="The Quark home page">Quark</a> XPress, (6.x) was released in June of 2003 to the great delight of many designers, both graphic and otherwise. Firstly, the previous version, (5) was generally considered to be doa, especially considering the version was know to be incompatible with <a href="http://www.apple.com" title="The Apple home page">Apple</a>'s latest OS, <a href="http://www.apple.com/macosx/" title="The Apple OSX home page">OSX</a>. Secondly and more importantly, there were feature sets available in competitive software packages, namely <a href="http://www.adobe.com" title="The Adobe home page">Adobe</a>, that were conspicuous by there absence in the Quark releases, (both 5 and 6). I'm sure many working designers know of colleagues completing designs wholly in photoshop or illustrator and producing results that were nearly impossible in Quark. (at least from a efficiency perspective, which should be the most important aspect for professionals).<br /> In one months time it will be three years since that initial release for version 6. Updates not withstanding, any other company probably would have folded after not releasing a major upgrade for three years. I fully understand why there would be a delay in general. This is a very important release for Quark. With the mac becoming more PC-like by the second, <a href="http://www.apple.com/macosx/bootcamp/" title="The Apple Boot Camp page">a main channel partner is changing</a> how it will do business in the future. This probably means the traditional mac-quark tie-in will lose even more of its cachet. More importantly, Adobe is serious competition, with the .pdf format literally changing the print production job cycle and several other products having achieved the coveted "industry standard" label in certain other graphic design areas. <br /> Surely Quark has realized the importance of their next major release since at least version 6.1. This release must not only re-establish Quark as an innovator in document layout, but must provide a 18 - 24 month cushion where they are <strong><em>the</strong></em> product on the market and the release of version 8 becomes highly anticipated and the killer graphics app of decade. Otherwise, with <a href="http://www.google.com" title="The Google home page">Google</a> and <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/products/expression/en/graphic_designer/default.aspx" title="The Microsoft entry: Expression Vector and Bitmap software.">Microsoft</a> soon to enter the content creation software market, Quark is as good as dead.<br />Even though I first received an advert from Quark about the print production version of Quark 7 about 3 months ago, I'm still receiving ads asking to me upgrade to 6.5, (for free) i anticipation of the release of version 7. Now I had originally thought the delays in the new release were so that Quark could add more features and capabilities. Now <a href="http://www.quark.com/service/forums/viewforum.php?f=34" title="Quark's Xpress 7 beta forum">this current behavior</a> on a release that by even the nicest standards is more than a year late, makes me worried that the problems may be in another area. I mean, can you imagine waiting three years for a new version and then the software doesn't even work?!? Is that a death knell in the distance? Wither Quark? <h4>Rant</h4> I'm for bashing the ultra rich just like everyone else, but I at least try to be decent about it. For the record, MSN was <em>NOT,</em> installed as the default browser on my beta of IE7. Google was. I mean, if someone has to lie to make a point do they really have one to be made?2006-05-09T09:37:17-04:00Emphatic Digital Graphic DesignKahlil Haynes (mailto:webmaster@emphaticdigital.com)Copyright © 2004-2008Graphic Designhttp://www.emphaticdigital.com/?page_name=index&entry_number=10<h3>To AJAX or not to AJAX</h3> While I personally believe the huge number of blogs available are so bloated with fluff as to severely dull the excitement associated with the technology, at least it is a benign dullness. The overstuffing of the blogoshpere with so much polyester while annoying is not inherently dangerous. (at least so far). More dangerous is this mad rush among webmasters towards <a href="http://adaptivepath.com/publications/essays/archives/000385.php" title="What is AJAX?">AJAX implementations</a>.<br /> AJAX, which is a confusing acronym for implementing several pre-existing technologies in supposedly new ways, stands for Asynchronous JavaScript And XML, which is a Web development technique for creating interactive web applications. It seeks to mimic a more classic desktop application feel that allows part of the interface to change in response to user interaction without reloading the entire interface, in this case the webpage. This is the first myth of AJAX. If you want to mimic desktop applicaitions, you don't prevent the other parts of the interface from updating. In fact, classic OOP (Object Oriented Programming) techniques would suggest that you just report the user event and allow individual components decide if they need to update or not. More importantly, the delay in the refresh of the interface is due to bottlenecks in the http pipe not so much that the entire page needs to refresh. As more and more of the world moves to broadband, the "refresh" delay that AJAX implementations seek to avoid become less and less noticeable in the first place.<br />What's even more scary is the massive amount of scripting going on out there. The ability for the average person to believe a certain technology is safe from attack or vulnerability is amazing. Not only is active remote scripting inherently unsafe, but the hacks that are neccessary for implementation across different browsers is a ticking time bomb. (Y2K anyone). When you consider the main positive of AJAX, (lessening the need to load a full page of html, when only a portion needs to be updated), is not even fully addressed, (there can still be uncontollable latency in the application), the rampant use of DHTML/Javascript is like leaving the back door unlocked, ... before you go on vacation!2006-05-01T23:13:58-04:00Emphatic Digital Graphic DesignKahlil Haynes (mailto:webmaster@emphaticdigital.com)Copyright © 2004-2008Graphic Designhttp://www.emphaticdigital.com/?page_name=index&entry_number=9<h4>LAMP CMS</h4> We are building a cms (content management sytem) for the site. We just fininshed the blog portion of the application and building it taught us some valuable lessons. (you see ... change IS good.) We scripted the application in LAMP, (<a href="http://www.linux.org/" target="_blank" title= "Linux Online">linux OS</a>, <a href="http://www.apache.org/" target="_blank" title= "The Apache Foundation">Apache web server</a>, <a href="http://www.mysql.com/" target="_blank" title= "The MySQL site">MySQL database</a>, and <a href="http://www.php.net/" target="_blank" title= "The PHP site">PHP scripting language</a>), because of the price point, ;-) and the ease of maintenance. While the logic of the application is straight forward, we hit a major stumbling block in our quest to be explicit in our scripts: Every server side scripting language has the ability to 'include' other files at run-time that add extra functionality to the application. Well, when including, (or requiring) in PHP be sure NOT to include absolute URL's, (specifically http protocols.) The worse part about this obscure glitch is that the include goes through seamlessly. The only problem ... it depopulates all of the superglobals!!! Extremely frustrating. What saved the day? A little PHP function called, print_r(). print_r will print the internal data structure of PHP objects which would include arrays, and since the superglobals are indeed arrays, it allowed us to see that the variables created earlier in the logic were not being reported (or scoped) to the included file. All is working well now though. (Will post some techniques for working with MySQL/PHP dates soon). Work continues ... <br /> <h4>Rants</h4> <h5>Adobe</h5> It appears that the <a href="http://www.adobe.com/" title="The Adobe site">adobe/macromedia</a> merger has not gone as smoothly as the adobe PR machine would have us believe. Not only are there seriously irritating flaws in both software packages, but some of the company training materials are really screwed up. The lack of attention to detail is astounding. <a href="http://share.studio.adobe.com/axLogin.asp?next=http%3A%2F%2Fshare%2Estudio%2Eadobe%2Ecom%2FaxDownloadSingle%2Easp%3FaID%3D13353%26next%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fshare%252Estudio%252Eadobe%252Ecom%252FaxAssetDetailSubmit%252Easp%253FaID%253D13353" target="_blank" title="Read the note for registered users at the bottom this Adobe Exchange page.">Here is one example.</a> I guess I'm spoiled. <h5>Internet Explorer</h5> Did anyone else notice the update to how certain versions of IE handle flash content now? Gone is the hideous yellow bar, (it was like a ruler across the knuckles). Now we get a graceful failure where users receive a hand symbol and a tooltip asking them to 'click to activate the control'. Not a perfect solution, but at least your movies will display and scripts that don't depend on user input will run. It does give us hope for the future.2006-04-26T00:44:22-04:00Emphatic Digital Graphic DesignKahlil Haynes (mailto:webmaster@emphaticdigital.com)Copyright © 2004-2008Graphic Designhttp://www.emphaticdigital.com/?page_name=index&entry_number=1The perception of color, in humans and other animals, has been as important a cognitive ability, as far as survival goes, as touch or even taste. From fighting predators to determining the ripeness of fruits and vegetables, the ability to distinguish hues, shades and intensities of color has certainly been a boon to mankind. So it should not be unusual to us that color has the ability to evoke such a strong response from those viewing it. Moreover, since the human response to color is automatic, having been ingrained over thousands of years of development, a designer ignores purposefully setting a color mood at their own peril. <br /> One of the hardest or most difficult aspects of designing a mood for a piece is determining what colors provoke which response. Does --red-- signify love or anger or warning? Is blue melancholy or just peaceful? Making this even more complicated is the fact that humans can distinguish hundreds of different shades, (i.e., lightness levels) for each different color, (i.e., hue). Luckily though, we can use this ability to distinguish brightness to our advantage. <br /> While we do not necessarily know exactly what feeling/emotions the color --red-- will invoke in anyone individual, we can predict what range, (or gamut) of emotions that specific reaction will fall into. For instance, while we may not know if a person --seeing red-- is in love or angry or cautious, we can safely assume they are neither peaceful nor melancholy. Of course there will be exceptions, but we can be sure for a large part of our audience that the emotional response falls within a certain range. Our job now becomes to steer viewers to specific emotions within a certain broader gamut of feeling. We can perform this task with color schemes. Color schemes are a way of supporting a main color with other colors that help refine the main colors intended meaning. Picasso was a master of this technique, painting several paintings that use only one primary color but at differing brightness levels. Picasso--s "Poor People on the Seashore" is an excellent example of this technique. I don--t suggest going to that extreme each time although it would make good practice. Let--s look at an example. <br /> Suppose we decided in our --seeing red-- example we would want our viewer to start having romantic thoughts. Well besides adding the text, --think romantic thoughts--, we could lead the viewer towards the desired emotional response by adding a field of say --pink-- to the piece, or maybe a picture of bright red roses with earthy green stems, or maybe a close up of chocolates in a dark rich mocha in a sea of intense red. Well what we have done is make a --love themed color scheme of --red, pink, earthy green and chocolate brown--. And the important thing to note is that we are not required to use all of the colors in a color scheme. The main idea is to have the colors pre selected to allow us flexibility in conveying our message to the audience. <br /> The easiest way to create a color scheme is to think of the subject matter of the piece and then choose the main color that comes to mind as you consider the subject. After arriving at the main color, begin to brainstorm and think of the colors that surround that main color when thinking about the subject. (You may not have realized it but humans almost never see a single color on its own, -- unless they are unconscious. Colors are almost always surrounded by other colors.) Generally one would like between 3-5 colors in a color scheme. Although I would only go lower than 3 in extreme cases or as a mental exercise, it is okay to chose as many as 6-8 colors in your scheme. <br /> After you develop the scheme, you may want to tailor it for a specific piece by labeling the colors with their intended uses (e.g., main background, text background, heading text, paragraph text, etc). I use a transparent Photoshop file, the shape tool set to make shape layers and the text tool. I then save the color scheme I the same folder with the project for easy reference or for use as a swatch file. <br /> Another method for creating natural or organic color schemes I've seen used to great effect is this Take a photo of a natural subject, seascape, landscape, flower, animal, or general scenes, such as people at the park, or a portrait in a specific background, such as with a back drip of Broadway or other city lights. Import the photo into Photoshop or another editor that can use Photoshop plug-ins. In Photoshop, use one of the --pixelate-- filters under Filters>Pixelate. Try --Crystallize-- or --Mosaic-- at a cell size of 200 on a picture of a sunset or ocean scene. 2006-04-21T08:51:56-04:00Emphatic Digital Graphic DesignKahlil Haynes (mailto:webmaster@emphaticdigital.com)Copyright © 2004-2008Graphic Design